The Award for Worst Actor Goes To
by helpivefallenandicantgetup
Summary: Permanent Guardianship of a Minor, unlike adoption, only lasts so long as the person being guarded is, in fact, a minor. Dick turns eighteen with the Titans, so Bruce's legal guardianship expires while they're on bad terms and opposite sides of the continent. Additionally, minimum drinking age in the U.S. is unreasonable and four out of five Titans don't recommend father figures.


Notes: I've never understood why Teen Titans Robin is so different from literally every other version of Dick Grayson. He takes himself way too seriously; he's almost like an unholy amalgamation Robin with Dick's backstory, Tim's weapon, and Damien's personality. Every other Dick Grayson is kind of like a sexy golden retriever who makes too many puns, sometimes even _while _he's trying to brood like a good Bat. This story sort of morphed into my attempt to make sense of that different characterization by examining it in light of Dick's circumstances at the time (something I noticed the _Titans _TV show writers trying to do, too, in some of the bearable episodes). For people who only watched the cartoon, Dick Grayson=Robin, Koriand'r/Kory=Starfire, Victor Stone=Cyborg, and Garfield Logan=Beast Boy. Due to the whole extradimensional origin thing Raven is just Raven in this, not Rachel Roth. Hope you like it!

###

The asshole of the day yells something vaguely insulting about Robin's mom and lashes out with one of her seemingly endless tentacles. Robin thinks he's probably supposed to be offended, but honestly it's better than the usual bad guy banter. Especially for Jump City: They have less of a tendency to monologue here than in Gotham, but they also have fewer interesting things to say. If you pay just enough attention to hear what he's saying and not, you know, die, Joker can get you ahead in in a lot of political theory and sociology classes, and that's a certified Gotham life hack.

Robin takes the path of least resistance and backflips over the tentacle, but the daggerlike fin at the end slices across his trailing arm, and he bites back a hiss of pain. He makes a mental note that that's another change he should make to his uniform: sleeves. He ditched the cape a few months ago because he realized relying too much on it was screwing with his balance out of costume (and also because if he's learned anything from Catwoman, it's that you've got to use all of your assets. Of course, credit where credit's due, he should thank Kory for enlightening him on what those assets are).

He's off his game today. He realizes that, of course. He's not keeping up with the heavy hitters (read: everyone on the team except for him), so he dodges behind an overturned car, notifies Vic over his hand radio, and disappears. In the beginning he really tried to convince the Titans of the value of delegating jobs, going beyond basic strategy for more efficient takedowns. To be honest, he really just wanted to be on stealth attacks, where he excels, but when your teammates keep shrinking out of/crippling everyone with sonic feedback through/accidentally incinerating practical comms, it becomes easier to keep them within regular verbal communication range. And it's not like he can't hold his own in a straight-up scuffle, which is really how the team works best. He's just had to adapt.

Today, though, his sprained ankle from two nights ago would really appreciate a quick end to the scrum, so he catches Kory and asks her to try to drive the rampaging knife octopus lady _(seriously, why) _into a nearby parking garage. Then he rolls under a few tentacles and grapples to the ceiling of the garage, balancing in an easy crouch on the hanging fluorescent light and thanking that old wizard guy with some vague connection to the Greek pantheon (Shazam? Corporal Copyright Violation?) that he's still so small and light. Robin spends about half of his time being grateful for it and the other half sulkily making protein shakes in the Tower kitchen. He's been told he gets a sadistic gleam in his eye when he starts the blender.

Soon enough a green wooly mammoth _(nice)_ is harrying a tired-looking octopus lady through the entrance of the garage. Her huge, flailing limbs block out the light from outside and throw wild, writhing shadows onto the back wall. The descending ramp looks like the entrance to Hell.

Robin pulls out six time-delay electric disks, fans them out between his fingers, and drops from the ceiling. Somebody yelps. He slaps all six disks onto various surfaces of the octopus lady, kicks off of her shoulders, and rolls to minimum safe distance, all the while counting in his head. _One, two, three, four, five–_

There's an ungodly screech and the smell of burning seafood, and the limbs flail frantically before she collapses to the ground. Robin straightens out of his protective crouch and turns around.

Beast Boy looks like somebody just went after him with a flyswatter (Robin's never felt comfortable asking what sparked that particular hang-up). Kory is grinning, and Raven looks coolly unconcerned. Cyborg is the first to speak, laughing as he picks up one trailing tentacle. "Jesus, Rob, that could've given me a heart attack. You know, if I still had a cardiovascular system."

Raven quietly adds, "Is her heart still working?"

Kory flies down and checks for a pulse while Robin shifts to his other foot. "It was safe voltage," he defends awkwardly. "I mean. I estimated her body mass. She should be fine."

Beast Boy shoots him a confused look,and Robin cringes inside, though he keeps his face inscrutable and consciously corrects his posture. The team isn't used to seeing him unsure of himself, and definitely not on something like this. He hopes this won't cause backsliding on the ongoing "Hey, Kory, sentient life has value even if we don't like them!" conversation.

Kory straightens up, sunny smile back on her face. "Her heart is functioning correctly!"

Robin definitely doesn't let his relief show. He starts back toward where he stashed his motorcycle. The buildings in Jump aren't quite close enough together or elaborately decorated enough to make swinging by grapple an effective method of getting around. (Robin misses that, he can admit. Just a little bit.) "Hey, Beast Boy," he calls back over his shoulder, "you think you could let the police know to pick her up?" Beast Boy is just adorable enough to make an awesome PR guy as long as Cy manages him and takes over on the serious issues.

Beast Boy still looks confused. "Uh, yeah?" he calls back. "Aren't we gonna go out for pizza?"

"Go without me, I need to check on some stuff," Robin responds in a carefully easy tone. He sees Beast Boy shrug out of the corner of his eye, and then the rest of the team exits the garage and starts in the other direction down the gum-spotted sidewalk.

He's almost back to the Tower harbor (and he'd be lying if he said his skin doesn't crawl just a little bit whenever he approaches it from the front. It's just so _exposed _out on that island) when Raven slides out of a shadow next to him. They're in an alleyway, standing between a dumpster and someone's long-discarded and disturbingly stained coffee table. Robin is midway through pulling on the oversized college sweatshirt he keeps under the motorcycle seat, the ability to quickly change into civvies being another perk of capelessness. He trusts that the black leggings and boots look normal enough that no one will question them. (The outfit is now almost entirely black and red. If you asked, he would immediately give plenty of serious, practical reasons for this, and you'd believe him, because people tend to do that, but really the teasing just got to be too much. He's been considering just going completely black for stealth, but that would almost be too much like—well, anyway. He likes the splash of color.)

Anyway, Raven slides out of a shadow next to him just as he's pulling his head through the collar. He doesn't react externally, but inside he practically swallows his lungs. Fucking _teleporters! _There's no way to _not _be surprised by them. He's really glad he hasn't yet taken off his domino mask to put on his civilian shades.

Raven's also an empath, so she totally notices his moment of undignified panic, but at least she's polite enough not to mention it. She just says "Hey" and then lets him finish pulling on the sweatshirt.

He's a bit annoyed, honestly, but he tries to mask it. "Hey, Rae. Why aren't you getting pizza with the others?"

She shrugs one shoulder. "Too much grease throws off my aural resonance." Sometimes he's almost positive she makes this stuff up just to mess with them, but he's never sure. Her sense of humor is shady as hell (puns intended). "I decided I'd begin meditation for the evening." It's three in the afternoon, but Robin isn't really in a position to judge anyone else's sleep schedule. "I could also do something for your ankle, if you . . .?"

He knows better than to ask how she knows. "No, that's okay. I saw you take a few hits in the fight. Save your energy." She winces and shifts to take pressure off her ribs, corroborating his memory of glimpsing her thrown halfway down the street by a flailing limb.

He puts on heavy sunglasses and leaves the mask under them, she flips down her hood and magically conceals the gem on her forehead, and they start out of the alley and toward the secret entrance to the Tower access tunnel in comfortable silence. He doesn't think he would've gotten along with Raven when he was a loudmouthed brat quipping and punning and coping-mechanisming his way through a city that dwarfed his five-foot self, but he's gained a few inches and a lot of maturity, and more and more he's come to appreciate people who are _quiet. _He wonders if he would've gotten along with _himself _if he'd met himself as he is now back then. Little green speedo Robin would probably say he's too much like–

Wow. That's a stream-of-consciousness no-no if ever there was one, especially today. Raven winces and glances over at him, raising one eyebrow, and an eyedropper-full of guilt adds itself to the mix of his churning emotions at the reminder that he's also subjecting _her _to the crappy, vomit-stained laundromat washing machine that is his emotional state today. He imagines spreading a smooth layer of cement over his chest and breathes deeply, counting in his head. Raven's eyebrow creeps higher.

. . . And for a moment she's Alfred and his heartstrings are being pulled out of his body through his throat, and there goes all of his self-control. God, he's just _pathetic _today.

Raven doesn't say anything, and he doesn't expect her to, and it's not awkward. He's not sure if it's the soul bond they were forced to initiate when he was sixteen or just plain _friendship, _but it's something, and it's good. He walks his bike to the abandoned subway entrance, and she creates a ramp down the steep concrete stairs so he doesn't have to lug the heavy motorcycle down the stairs that always make it bounce viciously and jostle his teeth in his head. His iris scan and passcode let them both through the graffiti-obscured secret doorway, and he stows away his sunglasses and turns on night vision in his mask lenses rather than hit the switch for the line of jury-rigged hanging miner's lights, whose warm orange glow usually fills the tunnel the same way elephant toothpaste steadily sluices out of the beaker when a substitute teacher in middle school decides to prove that science is cool. He loves those lights, actually. Maybe the Cave has sunk into his DNA: He doesn't know when, but at some point the underground hidey-holes that used to make him so claustrophobic started feeling like home. But he doesn't turn on the lights this time, because he knows Raven prefers the dark.

They emerge into the Tower's lowest level, the garage that also has water access for certain forms of Beast Boy and other oxygen-optional allies. Raven's still floating beside him, and despite what today is, he feels one corner of his mouth quirk up when she briefly rests one cool hand on his shoulder (the cold can be felt even through the sweatshirt, but it's comforting at this point). "I'll be in the lounge, meditating. Join me if you choose; you're better at it than Starfire, though that's not saying much." She steps into a shadow and is gone.

Robin thinks she's done something to his ankle–it's barely sore anymore.

His room is on a middle floor, high enough not to be especially vulnerable to a ground assault but low enough for a good chance of surviving airborne explosive weaponry. His room in the Manor is similarly positioned on the second floor. Which brings him back to today: his eighteenth birthday. Almost two years since he came to Jump. In that time, he's barely talked to anyone from that life. No, that's a lie: He and Batgirl and Kid Flash DM each other memes on the reg, and he calls Alfred every month or so, especially when things are getting crazy. He hasn't kept up with any of his civilian friends, though. Maybe he should have made an effort. It's just–it's hard.

There's so many things he should have done, should still do. Technically, it's probably too late, though he really hasn't bothered (read: has managed to resist the compulsion) to read through the legal gobbledygook and case precedent. Still, _symbolically_ he still has a few more hours before–

No. He just–no.

But–!

He left for a good reason.

But he didn't _want_

He _can't._

Please, how many times has he thought that over the past ten years?

But _this . . . _it's been _two years._

He lets his legs go loose and sits down hard on the edge of his bed, bouncing a bit on the springy mattress. He stares at the glowing numbers on his cell. He's physically nauseous; he can taste stomach acid, and his tongue feels too big and dry and gummy.

He really can't.

He calls Alfred.

The phone rings twice, then there's a click and he's there. "Hello? Master Dick?"

Robin starts slightly. It's been so long since someone called him by his actual name that he's out of the habit of responding to it. Weird how that happens. "Hi, Alfie," he chokes out.

"I was wondering if you would call today, Master Dick. Happy birthday." Robin takes a second to breathe before responding, and Alfred catches the pause. "Is this line secure?" he asks, a bit of alarm slicing through his impeccable uppercrust accent.

_Shit, _he forgot! Wow, he really is off today. "No, I forgot—but everything's fine, Alfie, sorry, just a minute." He hangs up and quickly switches to his private, shielded WiFi signal. Sweaty fingers fumble and slide on the smooth screen as he dials again.

Alfred answers with a clipped "Secure?" Dick always forgets that he was military.

"Yes." Dick usually answers with "Aye-aye" or "Roger" or various appropriate _Airplane _references, but he just doesn't have the energy.

Alfred's voice is back to being as soft but firm as the pillows he fluffs in the mornings. Dick's current pillow has a clumsily sewn-up hole that occasionally weeps stuffing onto the floor, and he doesn't even sleep here many nights/mornings. (His sleep schedule really is a mess. Which is probably the most normal-teenager-y thing about him at this point.) (Except technically he's a legal adult now. Weird.)

"Would you like to speak to him, Master Dick?" Dick's heart jumps into his throat, and he's violently shaking his head before he realizes Alfred can't hear him. "No. Yes. No." He dimly recognizes that the mask lenses are filling up with water, and he rips the mask off and swipes at his cheeks angrily. Shit, he's faced so much worse than this. He spends half of his life almost dying, and he rarely even why is this so _hard?!_

Alfie's talking again. "–been banging around the Manor all day in an awful mood. Snapping at Jason, barely eating. I think . . . I think he'd appreciate a call."

Dick hears his next words, knows how petulant they sound, but he just can't _help _it. It seems like all of his performing skill is abandoning him today. "Well, then why doesn't _he _call me? He's the fu–the adult in this situation, so why is it always my responsibility to be the _emotionally competent _one?"

"I know, Master Dick, and you're completely right. I tried to get him to call, but he's just–" Alfred pauses, breathes, audibly lets go of his annoyance. "He should. But he won't."

And here he finds himself again, three thousand miles between them because Bruce never learned how to meet people halfway.

He's spoken to Bruce over the phone twice over the last two years. The first time was in the fallout of the whole Slade apprenticeship snafu. Dick still doesn't know how Bruce found out about that, but it's a good thing he did because Robin really just needed something—anything—from Bruce right then. For two hours and twenty-three minutes time seemed to freeze, and as the sun appeared over the horizon it really seemed like nothing had ever been broken.

Two days later, Batman broke a gangster's leg so badly it had to be amputated. And Bruce Wayne adopted Jason Todd.

The second time was after the Brotherhood of Evil attack when Dick was seventeen. (Alfred initiated the call, and then Bruce took the phone from him.) Dick hadn't been quite so affected by that incident; he'd mostly just been exhausted, eager to catch up on months' worth of sleep. Sure, he'd been taken before the final battle, but he didn't really remember much, and it hadn't been personal. It had been part of the job. Dick still thanks the god of idiocy every day that the Brotherhood never saw his face or learned his name. That call was awkward, stilted, and left him with an acute sense of loss.

And maybe it's cowardly (okay, it's completely cowardly, Robin's been in enough fights to recognize the difference between a tactical retreat and just plain running), but he just . . . doesn't think he could handle it if that happened again.

So he just sighs and says, "Yeah. I know."

There's not much more to say after that. Dick hangs up, leaving Robin to fall back on his bed and notice for the first time that, coming in, he forgot to turn on the lights.

He's not crying anymore. He needs to punch something, but it's only four o'clock, and he never starts solo patrol until at least 11:30. He could go train, but he's bone-tired. He could go meditate with Raven, but there's too much acid trickling down the insides of his lungs.

In the end, he just lays back on the bed and glares at the ceiling until at some point a dozing state drifts down lightly on top of him like a mosquito net.

He wakes up from angry, half-remembered dreams to find that it's now eight p.m.: still too early for patrol what with Daylight Savings Time in the spring. It's dark outside, but it hasn't been for long enough for the more dangerous criminals to start clawing their way out of the city's dark spots. He can recognize these pockets of darkness on sight now: The city tends to curl in around them like a man who's been kicked in the gut. He's spent a lot of time in them.

He hears a buzz of voices from the main lounge. The rest of the team must have gotten back from the pizza run while he was asleep. Weird that they didn't run into any trouble on the way back; supercriminals are so much more diurnal here in Jump. He'd say it's a shame thing, but their costumes are no less stupid. Maybe the Hive Five have a curfew.

He checks quickly in the mirror on his bedside table to make sure the mask hides any redness around his eyes and then heads out the door, which slides shut with a metallic _shhhunk _behind him. He's heading down to the database room, or, as he likes to think of it, his second bedroom. Last year during the whole Brotherhood of Evil ordeal he slept there pretty much every night (well, every night that he actually slept, so like every two or three nights or so). He actually had the data banks in his bedroom when they first started the team, but then after the closing of the Brother Blood case Cyborg got a lot more comfortable with his less human abilities—like interfacing directly with computers—and started helping out with upkeep of their information network and records. Nowadays, unless they're in crisis mode, they share monitor and updating duty and Robin only occasionally has to spend a late night in there expanding the database (read: hacking into other people's databases. He can admit at this point that Vic is a better hacker, but Robin is privy to a lot of secret identities Vic isn't).

He passes the team minus Raven in the hall. They're making fun of Kory for accidentally hitting on the waiter (accidentally, ha. How do the others not see at this point that she just enjoys causing chaos? He thinks that's why they get along so well: He's been suppressing that same mischievous urge for about three years now. _Damn, _he's gotten really boring, hasn't he? Why does she put up with him?).

Vic notices as he brushes past them. "Hey, Rob! We saved you a slice, you want it?"

He turns to walk backward, affecting an easy smile. "Nah, just put it in the fridge. Thanks!"

Kory turns with a spreading grin, stopping the group just before the kitchen door. "But Robin, but you are aware of the Second Law of Titans Tower, yes?"

Raven slides out of the floor next to Robin, who almost swallows his _pancreas_ this time, but very subtly. "Did you guys take advantage of the two responsible members not being there to make new rules to thwart us?" she deadpans. Robin thinks he hears Gar mutter "Darn, why didn't we think of that?"

"It is based on the human laws of thermodynamics, which Cyborg has been explaining to me since I have completed a satisfactory Tamaranian education but lack some Earth terminology," Kory explains in a conspiratorial tone. "The law states that any pizza left in the fridge of Titans Tower for more than ten minutes is subject to a natural destructive phenomenon even stronger, faster, and more irresistible than entropy: Beast Boy's stomach."

He chuckles lightly. _Oh, wait, that's . . . really true._ "On second thought, I'll take that slice now."

The sheepish grin on his face really is real, he'd swear to you if you asked him, and maybe it's even true right then, but Kory still catches his eye with an odd look as he takes the proffered box from Cy's huge hands and subtly, "accidentally" wafts it under Beast Boy's nose, over his deepening pout. His smile switches to toothpaste ad mode as he makes some comment he himself half-overhears about the grease on BB's face before he heads out with one more "Seriously, guys. Thanks." Kory side-eyes him again, even more suspiciously. He really is _so _off his game today!

He forgets to stop smiling until he's finally in the server room and realizes it's become more of a hesitant grimace. He sighs, long and deep, and flops into the only rolling spinny chair in the small room, the one situated in front of his favorite display: not the big one in the middle but the smaller, jury-rigged screen lower over the desk and to the right, the one with the ridiculous processing power that Babs helped him modify _before_. Small green and red lights blink erratically, synchronizing more and more until they're almost all expressing a common rhythm and then quickly falling back into incomprehensible chaos. It's like a visual symphony peering at him out of the dark corners.

He rests his chin on one palm, elbow on the desk, and opens the pizza box. He's not hungry, but he supposes he should eat _something _today, and it really was amazing of them to save it for him. The cheese tastes like overly salty toilet paper, and the grease clings to the backs of his molars. He forces himself to eat it all, though, because he really should eat. And he should patrol soon, too, but honestly? He knows his limits, push-able though they may be, and that's just not going to happen tonight. He can definitely flesh out the mostly empty profiles on all 432 known or suspected members and associates of the Lagrimas del Toro gang that's been blackmailing the mayor's brother, though. He should be productive that way, at least. Keep working toward something much larger than any one person . . .

He knows he should call Bruce. He doesn't know if it will make things better, but the fact is, he's about to lose what feels like his last remaining active connection to the man who raised him from age eight. The same man who used to always get a gleam in his eye when he and Dick skipped out of some boring gala to go on patrol, light-fingering a few hors d'oeuvres on the way out the door. The same man who used to hold him through his nightmares, the same man who used to never refuse when Dick threw down the gauntlet for a handstand contest in the cave, the same man who went out and bought an _entire new refrigerator _when the one they had wasn't magnetic enough for Dick's straight-A report card to stick to it, the same man who got him into a hundred scrapes but got him out of them, too. The guy who tried so hard not to overstep, not to replace Dick's father because, back then, Dick didn't want him to, who moved with the grace of an alley cat under more than seventy pounds of body armor and yet got all awkward and clumsy when it came to things like, say, patting the child he'd taken in on the back. _Hey there, champ. Your grapple accuracy could use some work, but otherwise you did great._

_I'm sorry, Dick. I know, it won't ever be alright. But I promise you, it will get better._

Bruce used to be so much better, but the bad guys kept coming and for years now he's been getting more and more cold and distant, hypercritical and hyperviolent, and Dick just can't figure out where he went wrong. Or maybe Dick was the one who got worse. After all, little traffic light Robin wouldn't have wasted so much time staring at his phone; he would've just called. He used to be a ball of energy; now he's tired all the time from late nights on the streets and then at the monitors. He used to make jokes; now he keeps the puns to himself and instead gives orders. And now he's just like Bruce in the one way he never thought he could be: He won't pick up the phone.

Instead, he opens up a tab and starts looking into the family background of Peter "Jackrabbit" García, bagman for the branch east of Rand Avenue.

The next time he looks up, it's 1:23 a.m., and Dick Grayson is officially no longer anyone's legal ward. He missed midnight. The legal tie is severed, maybe his one remaining tie to Bruce Wayne severed, and he didn't even notice, didn't feel it when it _snapped. _One less thing tying him down to the earth. But he's an acrobat, born to fly through the air with the greatest of ease, so why does he feel so _uneasy?_

Not just uneasy. Sick. Dick leans over and gags into the small trash can by his desk, throws up the one meager slice of pizza and then retches air until the sweat stands out on his forehead and neck and there is a sour taste in his mouth, but in his stomach there is nothing left. Breathing heavily, he wipes one forearm across his mouth and then collapses on his folded arms on the deck. He doesn't cry. He's spent.

Dick Grayson is eighteen years old, and the back of his tongue tastes like his own guts. And as of one hour and twenty-four minutes ago, he is free. He wonders what freedom is supposed to taste like.

###

Three days later, Starfire and Cyborg bring four six-packs of Coors Light back to the Tower. Kory actually flies Victor in through an upper window so he can make a dramatic entrance dangling the cartons in his outstretched hands like some sort of triumphant messiah or conquering hero. Kory yells, "There ain't no party like a Jump City party because a Jump City party does not stop!" with very careful diction and no discernible rhythm, and Raven drops her book on the kitchen table expressly so that she can drop her face into her hands and groan protractedly.

Beast Boy sticks his head around the hallway door into the kitchen. "Dude, how did you even get that? Neither of you looks twenty-one, your hair is on fire, and he's partially a robot."

"Guy on the street. What can I say, we're heroes," Vic explains with a wink. "But we're limiting you in advance to two since you're, like, twelve."

"Dude! I'm past legal drinking age in Quarac."

"He makes a valid point," Kory says considerately. "Raven, will you be joining us?"

"I'll pass," Rae deadpans. "For one thing, I value my self-control, and for another thing, I will gain more enjoyment from putting your drunken idiocy on my story." Oh, how Robin rues the day they introduced Raven to Snapchat.

"Crap," Cy intones. "Then this is way too much alcohol.

"My metabolism will probably require that I drink her share anyway," offers Kory affably. "You, Robin?"

Hmm. He also values his self-control; it's what keeps him alive in the absence of sonic cannons or laser eyes. However, it's been a pretty crappy few days, and this might actually be fun.

What the hell. Robin decides to get shitfaced.

Two hours later the security system and city alerts have all been triple-checked and they're sprawled around the lounge area, varying degrees of intoxicated. Kory is hovering in midair, three sheets to the wind. She insists that her alien metabolism makes her less susceptible to Earth alcohol, but Robin suspects it actually makes her _more _of a lightweight. Robin is curled at an odd angle in the pleather armchair Beast Boy insisted they buy from an antique store to support the vegan materials industry, even though realistically it had no practical effect since, you know, _antique store. _He's drowsy and blurry in a way he's never been before: He's gotten a little bit tipsy at a few high school parties, but his sense of responsibility and his paranoia joined forces to stop him from really compromising himself, and so he generally ended up being the guy to ferry his friends home and hold people's hair while they vomited. Vic is behind the couch, a position from which he has been singing loudly for quite some time, occasionally interrupting himself to shout out his discoveries ("BB, dude, I think I found your Tamagotchi! Oh, wait, that's just dust"). Raven has gotten sufficient footage of this and is now seated cross-legged on the bean bag chair next to the windows, across from Vic's couch, pretending to read a book. It suddenly occurs to Robin that he doesn't actually know who follows Rae on Snapchat. It's a surprisingly terrifying thought. Beast Boy is in the middle of the floor, curled up in the form of a very tipsy green housecat.

Suddenly, the housecat starts vibrating, almost like he's experiencing an incredibly intense purring attack, and leaps straight into the air to reveal that he was laying on top of his now violently buzzing phone. The cat noses the screen, reads the caller I.D., and suddenly grows into a life-sized Garfield Logan complete with opposable thumbs. "Oh, man, Rita! I gotta take this, guys!" He sprints slightly unsteadily out of the room.

Kory turns to him inquiringly. "Robin, what is a Rita?"

"Elastic Girl. Or Elastigirl? How is that even spelled? Is there a hyphen? Please tell me there's no hyphen," Robin muses upside-downedly.

Kory giggles. "You are funny like this. You talk so much." She grins, displaying that line of perfect white teeth that makes his stomach do a backflip.

Suddenly, they hear Beast Boy's raised voice, muffled by the walls, and then the door slides back open and he bursts through with a cry of "Damn it, Mento, that _fucking asshole!" _Dick finds himself choking out a high, awkward cackle of disbelief. Gar has never sworn. Ever. Kid's a Boy Scout that way. Okay, well, he's said some things in Quraci during fights that didn't sound all that friendly, but he's never sworn in _English _that Dick can remember.

"What'd he do this time?" Vic calls out from the other side of the room, where one mechanical leg is visible poking out from behind the couch.

"He keeps calling, trying to get me to convince you guys to go on his missions. Trying to _use _me, like always, except it's not even me he wants anymore, it's you guys! And I _blocked _him, so the stupid prick took Rita's phone while she was out on a job, and I answered 'cause I thought she was returning my happy birthday message. _God, _he's just so—!" His voice breaks, and he suddenly folds in on himself, shrinks, and then a green mountain goat streaks across the room and slams full force into the wall, leaving two parallel indentations in the plaster like giant tally marks on a prison cell wall. The whole room shakes with the force of the blow, and dust drifts down from the ceiling. Cy and Robin both leap upright in surprise while Kory drifts in a slightly anxious circle. Robin immediately goes back down in the chair, though, dizziness getting the better of him. The part of his mind not massively unnerved by the experience of being anything less than sure-footed vaguely remembers from some late-night Wikipedia deep-dive that goats are some of the only animals that don't have tear ducts as the mountain goat that was Garfield Logan curls its long limbs up into a pile against the wall. "Ugh, sorry, he just makes me so _angry,_ the sliminess, the_ controlling. _I can't believe I actually used to look up to him! He's the one who threw me off the team, and now he won't leave me alone!"

Some deep part of Dick's brain whispers, _There's irony for you. _And then the more inebriated part responds with _Shut up, Alanis Morissette._

He's not drunk enough not to realize that he's the leader, so he should probably do something here, but he's at a loss and really just _so _not equipped to have this conversation in every possible way. He glances, in his helplessness, at Vic, their resident Garfield expert, but Vic's plopping down face-first onto the creaking couch with a weird smile on his face, one Dick's never seen there before and which therefore takes him a moment to place. It's stretched and unnatural and . . . _bitter_.

"Heh. Know what that's like." God, even his brief chuckle sounds wrong. "My dad hasn't stopped trying to reach me since he did—_this _to me," he starts, gesturing to his various chrome-plated parts in a single, jerky movement. He sighs, and it's like a burst of steam, and despite everything Dick would never describe Victor Stone as robotic, but just now he came pretty close. "Years since he showed much of an interest before," he continues, "too busy with the high-minded pursuit of _science, _but one little accident and suddenly his kid is his science experiment and there's no conflict of interest anymore. I'm a freak of nature with no college prospects and my dad is suddenly my best friend." He hesitates, glances around at the eyes on him, and takes another deep swig from his bottle. This time, his laugh sounds oddly weak. "Jesus, _so _glad I still have a liver to destroy," he jokes.

"Dude, you were gonna say something. You should say the thing," Gar slurs suddenly from his seat by the wall. At some point he shifted back to human, or at least as human as he usually gets and maybe a little more.

"What thing?"

"The. The thing. The thing you were going to say."

Vic smiles at him, but then looks away. "Naw, naw dude. It's dumb. Forget it, I'm drunk."

Raven shoots him a _look _from her seat (cross-legged on the bean bag chair) across the room from him. "As an empath, I can promise you that it doesn't _feel _dumb," she drawls, then looks away as if embarrassed.

Victor picks at the carpet with one dangling hand. "It's just . . . that was actually the main reason I left. Not to figure my shit out but because he wanted me there, finally wanted me, and I . . . maybe I wanted to punish him? I don't really know if it was because I was actually better off without him or if I just wanted him to _hurt. _But that's fucked up, because, I mean, he raised me, and I, I, I _love _him, but he shows up at some of our fights and I see his face and he looks _devastated _and it–I can't help it, it feels _good." _He sighs shakily and rolls onto his back on the couch, a quiet electrical _whirr _accompanying his movements. "But that's, like, _sick, _right? I mean–_fuck."_

Beast Boy laughs weakly from against the wall. "No, that's right, dude. Fuck 'em."

Kory, still upside down in midair, executes a complicated if wobbly flip thing that brings her into a position from which she can look at her two friends with concern. "I am sorry that your paternal figures have been so disappointing," she says very seriously. Unfortunately, a hiccup ruins her concentration, and she has to uncross and recross her eyes several times (how does she even do that?! Half of the time she doesn't even have pupils!) before she can refocus enough to continue. "On Tamaran, my"—the Tamaranian word is pretty much unintelligible with her slurring her words—"did not have much time for child-rearing, and he tended to devote what he did have to my"—_hIC—_"sister, feeling that her disability made her lack resiliency. However, once I became old enough to accompany him in affairs of state, we were able to bond and overcome that hurdle, and I came to respect and appreciate him as a good man independent of a child's freely-given affection. I miss him very much." She frowns, and the room is silent for a few seconds. "I am sorry, I did not mean to flaunt my good fortune. I simply meant to say that, in my experience, love for a person may be illogical and impossible to withhold even when it is undeserved, but you cannot _owe_ someone esteem. Esteem must be earned. Maybe a difficult part of growing older is realizing that maybe the ones you love do not always merit your esteem."

The room falls back into silence. Dick, who was thinking before everyone started talking that he was too dizzy to move, finds the motivation to lean backward over the arm of the armchair and reach for another drink. The clock in the kitchen is barely audible, but in the dead stillness they all register it as it crawls onward, away, though the volume never seems to become any fainter. _Tick, tick . . . tick . . ._

Raven sniffs. "Well. My father devours worlds. But. You already knew that."

In spite of himself, Dick finds himself laughing along with the rest of them. Hysterically. Arms flung out above his head and dangling down so that his fingertips brush the carpet, feeling his face turning tomato-red as tears leak out of his eyes. "Oh, my god," he wheezes. "Guys. Guys, it's like a fucking _toothpaste_ ad. 'Four out of five Titans don't recommend father figures!'"

Vic wheezes along with him. "Oh, man, dude, you're right, this is dumb. Can't we go back to talking about, like, stupid shit?"

Raven rolls her eyes, but she looks kind of relieved. "All in agreement, say aye." She raises her hand.

"Aye," crows Beast Boy before shrinking into a snake and cuddling comfortably around Cyborg's dangling sonic cannon arm.

"Aye!" calls Kory, giggling and doing a more deliberate flip in midair.

"Aye," says Dick, who at some point he doesn't quite remember ended up twisted into an upside-down pretzel position on the armchair with both feet under his head. "But this team is still not a democracy," he adds in a resentful mumble, mostly to himself since he knows they'll ignore him anyway.

"Guess that's agreed, then," Raven says drily, eyes already back down in her book.

Dick Grayson is eighteen. Ten years ago a man took him in under the conditions of permanent guardianship of a minor, a relationship with an expiration date in spite of its name. Three days ago, it expired. Several months from now, guilt will drive him to the steps of the manor in a last-ditch effort not to reconcile with Bruce but to build a relationship with Jason, something he knows he really should have done a year ago. One year from now, that effort will be rendered a waste of time, and he will reluctantly but also, in a sick, guilty part of himself, not-totally-unhappily be the main thing keeping Batman from falling apart. Shortly after that, Tim Drake will enter the colony, and Dick will become a regular fixture at the Manor because Tim and Jason both deserve better from him. And Bruce, too, maybe. Maybe not. But in the end, he'll decide that in that particular situation, that doesn't really matter. Two years from now Batman will respond to a joke Dick makes on patrol with one of his own, and Tim and Dick will share eye contact and an openmouthed gasp that slowly curls into a grin on both of their faces. Three years from now, Dick and Bruce will be able to regularly hold full conversations—defined in the Bat household as more than five minutes of semi-continuous talking with grunts only counted as half of a response—without a harsh word passing between them, and Tim will ask Dick for advice about girls. Four years from now, when Dick is twenty-two years old, Bruce will adopt him.

But for now, there's the scratchy beige-ish carpet in the lounge and the faux leather armchair looming over him protectively, and as they start to drift off he can hear his friends breathing all around him—Beast Boy in breathy, slightly congested snores; Raven with steady, even, trained exhalations; Victor accompanied by a not unpleasant but distinctive mechanical wheeze if you listen carefully; and finally Kory high and light, slightly faster than a sleeping human, and oh-so-familiar.

Dick is eighteen, and he's free, and it tastes like Coors Light: not so good at first, and it'll probably give him a splitting headache later, but right now it warms him right down to his core.


End file.
